Clinic studies future of healing

Research looks at regenerating organs, other advances

2:18 AM,
Jul. 17, 2013

Physicians and researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester say they see the future of medicine: a smorgasbord of technology that can be used to tap the body's innate ability to heal itself. Dr. Daniel Spoon is working with a bioreactor and a bioprinter with which he hopes to print heart valves. Here, he looks at a bioprinter in his lab area, on June 5 in Rochester, Minnesota.

Written by

Dan Browning
Minneapolis Star Tribune

At Mayo Clinic's Center for Regenerative Medicine, physicians and researchers have a dazzling array of tools at their fingertips: transplants, genomics, computerized data analysis and biomedical engineering.

But the core idea is simple: stimulating or restoring the human body's innate ability to heal itself.

Recent discoveries in cellular biology and genomics have led scientists to the threshold of what transplant cardiologist Dr. Brooks Edwards called the "single most-exciting advance" in his 35 years at Mayo. ...